Nature Bulletin No. 103   February 15, 1947
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
William N. Erickson, President
Roberts Mann, Supt. of Conservation

****:THE SPARROW HAWK

The Sparrow Hawk is the smallest and the handsomest American hawk. 
Most of them migrate southward in the fall but a few remain here all 
winter. The sparrow hawk, the pigeon hawk, the duck hawk and the 
gyrfalcons all belong to the falcon family, distinguished by their long 
pointed wings and streamlined shape. In the falcons, also, the upper bill 
of the beak has a tooth-like projection near the sharply-hooked tip, with 
a corresponding notch in the lower bill.

Other than the sparrow hawk, only the much larger and broader-winged 
marsh hawk has markings on the male distinctively different from those 
of the female. The male sparrow hawk has ashy-blue wing coverts, 
chestnut tail with one black band near the end, and white underparts 
dotted with black spots. The female has chestnut wing coverts barred 
with black, several bars on her chestnut tail, and white underparts 
streaked with black. The heads of both are ashy-blue on top and white 
on the sides and throat, with a conspicuous black vertical mark before 
the eye and another behind the eye.

The sparrow hawk seldom soars at great height. It is more apt to sail 
back and forth over a meadow, rather low, making a few quick 
exaggerated wing-strokes at intervals, hunting insects and mice. When 
they can get what they like, their diet is more than 50% grasshoppers 
and other insects, about 25% mice, perhaps 10% small birds, and the 
remainder spiders, frogs and small snakes. Fortunately, all hawks, and 
all owls except the great horned owl, are protected in Illinois and may 
not be killed.

The sparrow hawk usually nests in old woodpecker holes but sometimes 
in barns, factories or church steeples. Its call is a high-pitched metallic 
hysterical chatter remarkably like the warning note of the ground 
squirrel. Quickly repeated, it sounds something like "killy - killy - killy 
- killy".

It should be called the Grasshopper Hawk.